Monk

When Li Qi left Zhu Fengdan's cave abode, he was still in a daze.

Although things turned out exactly as Zhu Fengdan said...

If he treats these things as nonsense and ignores them, then these words will have no effect on him.

However, if he thinks about it carefully and ponders it deeply, these words will become his death warrant.

You really can die.

When he tries to put one of his ideas into practice, he is gambling with his life. Although the danger is not as great as the many Dao Path he is currently involved in, it is still very risky.

This is not a cultivation Zhu's Path.

Zhu's Path is a kind of peaceful, safe, and even bottleneck-free practice.

The reason is simple: all the dangers, obstacles, and stones blocking the road were removed by those who came before, and the road was leveled out, creating a smooth and easy path.

The difficulty of cultivating the Zhu's Path is ridiculously low.

Of course, this is only in comparison. Compared to those ordinary Cultivation Method, Zhu's Path's cultivation is very simple.

But promotion is still not a simple matter. Even though all the pitfalls have been filled in and all the detours have been marked, you still have to walk the path you're supposed to walk, and you won't miss a single step.

If you lack the ability to continue, you can't blame the Cultivation Method.

Now, Li Qi has deliberately deviated from the smooth path that Zhu's Path had laid out for him and instead ventured onto a rugged trail to seek his own death.

But there's nothing we can do about it.

If he doesn't take the shortcut, that demon will really make him pay the price.

Leaving is a desperate gamble, staying means certain death.

Well.

However, Li Qi was fortunate enough to regain some of his rationality and stopped clinging to these 'unimportant' things.

As Zhu Fengdan said, he actually still has some time.

Putting everything else aside, the Witch God also said that it's not easy for the Heavenly Demon to make a move against Li Qi.

The He-Who-Transforms-Himself-at-Will Heaven, also known as the Desire Realm, was suppressed by another world.

The shaman's original words were. "The Buddhist sect uses the Formless Heaven to cover the world and uses the Pure Land Dharma to suppress the Desire Realm."

The Formless Heaven should be the counterpart to the He-Who-Transforms-Himself-at-Will Heaven, a special existence belonging to the first rank, right?

The Formless Heaven suppressed the He-Who-Transforms-Himself-at-Will Heaven, just as the Buddha banished the Heavenly Demon to the outer realms in the past. The Heavenly Demon did not come and go as he imagined.

Every time the Heavenly Demon makes a move, he has to pay a heavy price. In places where Li Qi can't see, the Heavenly Demon is not doing well.

Of course, this is not good in terms of the first rank; it certainly cannot compare to Li Qi.

However, if even the sorcerer god spoke of a "heavy" price, then it must be extremely heavy.

Therefore, Li Qi felt that since the Heavenly Demon had made two moves in a short period of time, he would probably be quiet for a while, and at least for the next few years, he should be fine.

As he was thinking this, he suddenly felt someone pulling him.

Looking back, he realized that he had unknowingly left his teacher's sanctuary and had been wandering in the wilderness of Wushen Mountain for a long time.

Old Ma had been following him closely, seemingly sensing that something was wrong with him, so Old Ma took the initiative to bite his sleeve and pull him back.

This also allowed Li Qi to temporarily extricate himself from the vortex of thought.

At the same time, he suddenly woke up.

My cultivation level began to become somewhat disordered, and some fluctuations appeared in my personal microcosm.

When the mind is in turmoil, one cannot control one's cultivation.

Fortunately, it is still under control and can be repaired.

The collapse of Dao heart, leading to self-destruction, is not a legend or a joke, but a common occurrence in this world.

Cultivators can unleash powerful strength by relying on their own cultivation.

They are able to control this power because of the 'Tao' and the 'heart'.

The Dao is the foundation, while cultivation is a chaotic and disordered force. Only by relying on the Dao, and the Technique Method and Cultivation Method derived from it, can one transform cultivation from a rabble into an orderly army.

If I had to describe it, it would probably be...

Cultivation is like a bunch of refugees, a complex accumulation of qi. This qi is very scattered, and there are contradictions and frictions. It is very difficult to control it. If you are not careful, it will backfire and make you self-destruct.

The Cultivation Method can filter out the energy you need, such as absorbing only water vapor or refining it into internal energy.

Then, the necessary Qi is selected, gathered together, and then trained into a highly skilled army using various Cultivation Method.

Such a well-trained and highly skilled army can execute 'tactics,' or Technique Method, according to their will, and unleash even greater power.

Most importantly, the heart belongs to the commander.

Only a firm, strong heart capable of mastering the Way, the Law, and the Technique can command these soldiers and refugees, making them work for one's own purposes and preventing them from turning against one's own people.

Li Qi's Dao heart, so his cultivation naturally became scattered, and there was a tendency for him to become a rebellious person.

Fortunately, Old Ma woke him up in time, preventing him from suffering too much loss...

Li Qi stroked the horse's head, shook his head and sighed, "Thanks, brother. Ah, never mind, let's not think about that for now. Let's stabilize our Dao heart first."

Right after he finished speaking, Li Qi suddenly froze.

Wait... the heart? Is the heart related to the spiritual entity mentioned earlier?

Perhaps, between the Dao heart and that ethereal spiritual entity...

He had just thought that when he suddenly turned around and slapped himself across the face.

The blow was very hard; his neck cracked with a sound, his cervical spine twisted, and half of his face was smashed.

It wasn't just redness and swelling; it was a complete tear in the skin.

Old Ma took two steps back, his horse face filled with fear.

Has Li Qi lost his Dao heart and gone mad?

Li Qi, on the other hand, picked up a wisp of life force and slapped it onto the wound.

The intense vitality quickly healed his wounds and relieved the excruciating pain he felt.

After being provoked like that, Li Qi finally breathed a sigh of relief.

That's just a loose thread, but don't overthink it; there's plenty of time.

Li Qi forcibly suppressed his deeper thoughts, because he knew that if he continued, he would really self-destruct.

"Old Ma, carry me, let's go to Liesu, you should be able to find it, right?" Li Qi said, mounting the Old Ma.

Old Ma nodded and roared to indicate that he understood.

Liesu is a key transportation hub on Wushen Mountain, and its function is similar to that of Golden Platform in the Tang Kingdom.

The Liesu represent astronomical phenomena, while the vegetation represents terrestrial patterns. In winter, the vegetation withers and falls, but the Liesu the sky remain, hence the saying "only half of the sky is visible." The central part of the sky contains the pivot, which is the area where the four seasons' qi (vital energy) arrives, all located in the four suburbs.

The term "Liesu" refers to the numerous world groups.

It must be said that these Dao Path to enlightenment are all very skilled; they are truly Human Transformation.

Li Qi was going to Liesu to catch a carriage and then return to the Tang Kingdom.

He decided to temporarily set aside the controversies in his mind and go to the Tang Kingdom to complete the puzzle of the Demon Dragon and obtain the inspiration of the 'boundary' that he had always coveted.

Then... he took those imperial students on a trip to the Sacred Flame Realm.

With Shen Shuibi, Yang Ning, and a group of Imperial Academy students all together, the matter of the Sacred Flame Realm should be settled.

After dealing with the Green Mountain God and persuading the Sky Swallowing Demon Lord, I will return to the Imperial Academy and devote myself wholeheartedly to the remaining tasks.

This is how Li Qi planned it.

He and Old Ma left Zhu Fengdan's barren mountain, which had no vegetation at all.

It takes about ten days to get to Liesu, which isn't long.

Including these past ten days, more than a month has passed since he left Tang Kingdom. He has another month before his vacation.

Therefore, Li Qi needs to return within a month to bring the students back and have a sufficient reason to go to the classroom to compete in the cave.

It takes more than ten days to get to Liesu.

This is the sixth day since Old Ma set off.

As always, after Old Ma got tired, Li Qi chose to land in a scenic spot, rest for about a Chen to recover his strength, and then set off again.

Old Ma was Qi regulation not far away, absorbing the cloud energy in the sky to replenish his strength.

Li Qi found a pond, sat down around it, and began to read.

Spiritual practice is something that must be done every day without interruption.

Reading more books and newspapers is always beneficial.

Just as he was reading, his ears twitched, and he looked down the mountain.

At the foot of the mountain, there is a very ordinary mountain village.

Mountain strongholds are considered the basic unit of the Human Race within the jurisdiction of Wushen Mountain, so they are very common and not unusual.

However, at this moment, the mountain stronghold seems to be under attack by demons.

Generally speaking, Li Qi wouldn't get involved in such matters.

Just as a bandit has its own troubles, a demon also has its own reasons for being a demon.

Both sides have their own reasons.

Ultimately, everyone is just trying to survive, so it's inappropriate for Li Qi to get involved.

Just like a wildlife documentary director would never stop polar bears from hunting seals, that's not right. Although it's an 'act of kindness,' it goes against the laws of nature, disrupts the delicate balance, and causes even greater damage.

But this time, Li Qi frowned, because he saw a Buddha's Buddha's light in the battlefield.

Why is there Buddha's light?

Buddhist monk?

Li Qi stood up and said to Old Ma, "Old Ma, you eat first, I'll go take a look."

After speaking, he stood up and rushed towards the mountain stronghold at the foot of the mountain.

The seventh-rank soldier was very fast. The straight-line distance of only a dozen miles at the foot of the mountain was less than two breaths before Li Qi arrived above the battlefield.

He did not reveal himself, but maintained the state of 'Body Merged with Nature' in the Shaman Path, quietly watching below.

The battlefield below was quite chaotic, with probably several hundred people and dozens of monsters.

Most of those monsters are herbivores, such as deer, wild boars, and goats.

Looking at the Human Race, they were dressed as farmers and hunters, mostly native to the mountain villages. There were very few proper combat-type cultivators, and those who were were just hunters.

The battle was fierce, with Technique Method flying and blood and flesh splattering everywhere, but casualties were kept to double digits.

After all, both sides only had a few hundred people, and the total number of people involved was less than a thousand. It was already terrible if the casualties reached 10%.

Li Qi glanced once more at the hillside that had become a battlefield.

The mountains here are not large, covering only a few dozen square miles. Nearly half of them have been planted with cash crops by human settlements.

It looks like another battle over living space.

They'll probably fight until both sides can't afford any more casualties, then they'll sit down and talk again.

Li Qi had no intention of interfering in such a conflict. Who would he side with if he did? Who was truly in the wrong? Which side would he force to concede? Would he then punish both sides equally and then let them suffer in silence until he left, only to secretly punish them later?

Neither is suitable.

So he decided to let nature take its course. Li Qi simply continued to look around, trying to find the source of the Buddha's light's light.

He didn't spend much time; he quickly discovered the source of the Buddha's light.

He was a monk.

Naturally, under normal circumstances, only monks can have Buddha's light.

What Li Qi feared was not the abnormal situation. Seeing that it came from the monk, he was temporarily relieved.

The monk's cultivation level... Li Qi glanced at it and it seemed to be at the eighth rank, the highest on the entire battlefield.

The battles between the mountain stronghold and the demons were mostly between ninth-rank warriors. Clearly, neither the demons nor the mountain stronghold had brought out their trump cards—eighth-rank warriors.

If one's own eighth-rank official dies, then they will completely lose the right to stand in this place, and will be wiped out by other things.

This is the brutal competition of nature, the survival of the fittest.

The reason why the average grade and combat power of people in the Wushen Mountain region are so high is, of course, because of the excellent spiritual resources of heaven and earth cultivated by the great masters of the Shaman Path.

The second reason is the screening effect brought about by this competition.

Look at that monk over there.

He was on the edge of the battlefield, not participating in the fighting, and carefully concealing himself.

However, every time a person or demon dies, he will chant a Buddhist mantra, and then a faint Buddha's light will appear, guiding the soul of the deceased to him.

Now, there are dozens of confused and bewildered souls in his palm.

These spirits were spared from the Technique Method in the center of the battlefield and the harm from the sun in the sky, while the monk seemed to be waiting for something.

Li Qi frowned.

This monk... he wouldn't be thinking of performing a ritual to help these souls find peace, would he?

It's not that Li Qi is incompetent, but rather that none of the monks he has encountered so far have been good people, and the Buddhist community has left him with a very bad impression.

Although in theory Li Qi knew that Buddhism should guide people towards goodness, the impression left on Li Qi by the Chanzhi of Guangyang was simply too profound.

Not to mention the Three Lives Ancient Mirror, and the White Horse Temple and Kashyapa Matanga that I saw in the book before, none of them are good people. They basically have unclear connections with the demonic path, which makes Li Qi have some prejudice against this Dao Lineage.

But the monk we've encountered now seems to be... doing good deeds?

Li Qi continued to watch for a while.

The monk was wearing a dark blue robe and looked very young, only sixteen or seventeen years old; he was a novice monk.

Then he discovered that the monk seemed to actually be collecting the souls of those who died in battle and preparing to perform a ritual to help them pass on to the afterlife.

But just as Li Qi was watching, the monk suddenly looked up and his eyes met Li Qi's.

Li Qi was stunned.

Did that eighth-rank monk see him?

That's something.

The monk shuddered, then immediately looked to the side as if nothing had happened.

His acting was so poor that it perfectly matched the age his body suggested.

So Li Qi gracefully descended, crossed the battlefield, and stood before the monk.

Realizing he could no longer hide the truth and had been discovered, the young monk immediately clasped his hands together and said, "Senior Shamanic Human, please... please, after I have performed the ritual to guide the souls of the dead, then we can proceed with the interrogation, shall we?"

This reaction amused Li Qi.

They're quite self-aware.